


fumble at the one yard line

by hfszn



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lowercase, Not Beta Read, POV Second Person, again: derek's pov tho, let me know if i need to add any more tags-- there's quite a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26508385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hfszn/pseuds/hfszn
Summary: you are the star quarterback on your high school football team and you think those hours spent practicing your game-winning grin in the bathroom mirror must have paid off because you don't think anyone can tell that your smile is forced with his hand on your back.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	fumble at the one yard line

**Author's Note:**

> hi please do note that this is a work that focuses a lot on what derek went through growing up so please be wary of the tags and the content (death of a parent, **csa** ) and please take care of yourself.

you are five years old, your father's oldest and yet youngest son, and you think he is a hero.

your parents take you and your sisters to church every sunday, without fail, and you learn that god has a plan for you, for everyone. you ask your father why he would make it so that some people do bad things, ask if that’s all a part of his plan too, and your father tells you that god protects those who protect others; god protects people like him. 

you tell him you want to be just like him when you grow up. 

he saves people and you think that’s amazing. you think he’s amazing when he tells you about his day as a bedtime story, tells you about the girl he saved and the robber he stopped, the people he caught so he could make sure kids like you can grow up happy. it’s scary, at first, knowing that your father risks his life day after day but he comes back home every day anyways. 

you are only five years old and when he tells you that he’ll come back home to you every night, no matter how late, you believe him because you don’t know how to not. 

\--

you are ten years old and your father is dying. 

you will remember this later, a single event imprint on your life, but for now, you are ten, and you are sick, and you do not cry. one day, when you are older and you are wiser, you will understand that crying is not a weakness but you are not older and you are not wiser and you are your father’s only son watching him bleed out on the asphalt as you hold back tears because you’ve never had enough to afford vulnerability. 

he says that it’s okay, that it will be okay, that he will be okay. he says that help is on the way to make sure that he’s okay. he tells you to listen out for the sirens, but you can’t focus on his words, can’t focus on the sirens. you can’t focus on anything except the way that this shouldn’t have happened. if you could, you’d take it all back, you’d tough it out at school so he never had to drive out in the first place. you’d make it so that this never could have happened. this wasn’t supposed to happen.

your father was a hero— _ your _ hero—and heroes aren’t supposed to die.

you think the sirens are getting closer and you know it won’t matter. the robber was already long gone, purse in hand and gun in the waistband, no signs of him left except for a bullet in your father, and you wonder if he knows that he stole your life away too. you wonder who will tell your mother, your sisters. you wonder if it will have to be you. you don’t know how to explain that this is your fault, that you told him to stop, to help, and it’s your fault he’s dying even though he told you that god protects people like him. you don’t know what kind of a god lets this happen. 

it’s a struggle to take in a breath, to force your lungs to work when you don’t even think you want to, and it scares you. you’ve never felt this way before, you never want to feel this way again. it’s terrifying, this panicked helplessness, and your chest aches in a way you’ll later learn to recognize as far too familiar.

your father stops moving and you think you stop breathing. the sirens sound so distant or maybe your ears are just ringing and your hands are shaking--or maybe  _ you _ are shaking because your father’s always been your anchor and it’s got to be kind of hard to be an anchor when you’re _ dead _ _._ it still hasn’t really set in yet that he’s dead, gone, forever, and you know it will, eventually, but for now, you still think this must be a mistake, one the grownups can fix. 

you tell him you’re sorry because you are. 

he says nothing because he can’t. 

you are only ten years old, shaking and scared in the backseat of your father’s car, and you don’t think life is ever going to be fair to people like you. 

\--

you are seventeen years old and his hand is sliding up your shorts but you do not flinch. 

you do not say no.  ~~ you never said yes ~~ ~~.~~ you do not tell him to stop.  ~~ you want him to stop. ~~ you do not make a sound.  ~~ you want to scream. ~~

even though you know, by now, that you are stronger than him, stronger than  _ this _ , you do not touch him. you do not look at him. you do not think of him. 

you do not do anything.

he tells you that you want this and you bite your tongue, your lip, the inside of your cheek until blood fills your mouth and stains your teeth an ungodly red. 

you know what you want. you want him to burn, to rot in hell like the bastard he is, to have his life  _ ruined _ because he ruined yours, but a sports scholarship is your only ticket out of here, this deadbeat town where boys like you are forgotten, and you know, by now, that that means  _ he _ is your only ticket out of here. so you stay quiet, keep your head down and force yourself through practice with his hand on your shoulder and your arm and your back and you--

you wonder if this is karma. 

it’s been years since your father died ( _ since you got him killed _ , your subconscious taunts) but that was the start of it, wasn’t it? that’s when trouble started following you like a magnet, getting you caught up into things you should have been too smart to get caught up in. even when you thought it was over, when you thought you could turn over a new leaf and start a new life, you should have known that was too good to be true. you should have known that he was too good to be true. 

you want to tell someone, your mom, maybe, but you think it must be hard enough to raise three kids on her own without having to worry about this too, so you keep your mouth shut. you tape the broken pieces of yourself back together in the comfort of your room--a room he’s never been in, a room he’s never seen, a room where you are safe with a door that locks--and try not to think of how you were never meant to be broken in the first place. you think, bitterly, that if this is god’s plan for you, you don’t want any part of it anymore. 

you are only seventeen years old but you grit your teeth and bear more pain than you think any other seventeen-year-old deserves to go through because you don’t think it will ever end. 

\--

you are thirty-three years old and no one knows you as anything other than the protector who never needs to be protected. 

it’s a slow day in the office, one without a case and still too much to do, and spencer is talking your ear off at your desk that way he always does. he’s rambling on about a study on cellular reproduction or something that he read the night before and you’re half paying attention because, as much as you love the kid, he can talk for hours on end and there’s paperwork that was given a week ago you haven’t even started yet. he says it takes, on average, seven years for every cell in the human body to replace itself and you don’t think he notices when you pause for a moment, the stutter of your pen on paper. you do the math and realize that, if that’s true, which it often is when it comes to the genius, you’ve been twice-reborn since he has touched you. your body is a body he has never touched, one that he never will, and you think could cry.

so you do.

not there, at work, surrounded by profilers who could put two and two together far faster than you would want them to, but when you get home, alone, with a door that locks and he’s never been through. it’s not a big affair, not really, and it’s certainly not the breakdown you’re sure you should have had as a teenager going through too much trauma too fast to process it properly, but you do cry and you do feel better because of it. you still don’t talk about it, still can’t talk about it, can barely  _ think _ about it most days, but you know, now, that his old hands have not touched your new skin and you think maybe this mountain is less of a mountain, that maybe it is something you can climb one day.

you are only thirty-three years old but you know that you will still have bad days, you will still wake some mornings and wish you did anything but, but they will fade and you will have another tomorrow, one where you’ll be okay, and that is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> hi again!! thank you for reading my work, please feel free to let me know how you felt about it and also hmu on tumblr [@criminalszn](criminalszn.tumblr.com)


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